1,516 easy and fully explained recipes, with +66K photos and 78 videos

The peak of the apple season

As I write these lines, we are in the middle of the apple season, and it's an apple year, as you may have noticed if you have apple trees around you, they are bursting with fruit!

Excellent news for the people in the west of France in particular, but let's have a little thought for those in the east where it's a completely different story, the late spring frost has done a lot of damage, an almost blank year for apples and other fruits in some regions.

7,693 5/5 (13 reviews)

Keywords for this post:Apples Season Golden Apple peeler Taste

Last modified on: October 23^th 2021

For this post: Comment Follow Ask me a question Send to a friend

The peak of the apple season

tarte aux pommes

It's the season, as I said, and you have to take advantage of it as much as possible, even if apples keep pretty well over time.
So, let's go for all kinds of recipes: cakes, pies, compotes, baked, etc. It's delicious, and it can be used with all varieties of apples, which are often called in french "knife apples" to differentiate them from "cider apples".

In France, there are probably as many varieties of apples as there are cheeses, some of which are very well known, such as "golden", "reinette", "granny-smith" etc. And others much less well known and often very local, like the "reinettes d'Armorique", "calville", "belle fille normande", etc.
Of course, they are generally not very popular, you will hardly find them in supermarkets, but you can find them on the markets or with local producers, or with enthusiasts, who try to maintain (with difficulty) this greedy heritage.

As far as apples and recipes are concerned, in cooking and pastry-making, there are no rules, you can use any apple in any recipe, in theory... In practice it is a bit more delicate, and here are some points that deserve your attention:

- It's always good to remember, apples are overall quite fragile and susceptible to insect attack, so it's perfectly normal to have fruit that's a bit stained, a bit ugly, and not at all like the apples in the shiny, smooth, perfectly round in commercials. Surface imperfections are a sign of a lack of chemical treatments, and therefore a good sign, whereas a fruit that is "too" beautiful, especially with those stupid individual sticker labels, is always a bit fishy in my eyes. Long live ugly apples!

- Some apples don't do well with baking, granny-smiths for example, but that's almost an exception, and not an absolute rule either.

pommes golden

- The golden apple (above) is the archetype of the fruit that has been over-selected, processed and improved, to finally obtain an apple, certainly very pretty on the outside, but with a rather bland taste.
In my opinion, this is the apple to avoid, and to turn to more typical apples, which are much better in taste and health.

pommes reinettes

- The whole family of reinettes, and in particular the "reine des reinettes" (above) give an excellent and delicious result when cooked, their small natural acidity gives absolutely divine tarts (and in particular the tarte tatin).

- Whatever the recipe you are going to make, compote, tart or other, it is always very interesting to mix several varieties, rather sweet with rather sour for example. The taste will vary as you eat a pie or a cake, you will be pleasantly surprised by the result.

- The taste of apples changes with time, generally more pronounced, a little more acidic after the harvest, and softening with time.

épluche-pommes

- If you like and prepare apples often, I strongly advise you to invest in an apple peeler (pictured above) which peels, cores, and slices, it's not very expensive and makes life incredibly easy. If you decide on a whim to make an apple crumble for example, the simplest of cakes without doubt and adored by children because they can put their hands in the dough, a crumble then, with this tool, in 10 minutes of clock it is in the oven.

In summary: Make the most of the apple season, opt for local varieties if you can find them, avoid golden ones and invest in an apple peeler if possible and... eat apples!

Lasts posts

The grease spray

As soon as you have something in a recipe that sticks to the mold, the question always arises as to how difficult it is to remove from the mold. There's nothing more frustrating than breaking your cake when unmolding it, because part of it has stuck in the mold. The classic way to avoid this is...
August 26^th 20253,2075

Cake moulds

When we make a cake, or a cake of the same rectangular shape, we usually take out our usual mould and tell ourselves that the recipe is anyway "for a cake", but is it really that simple?
August 25^th 20254,3205

Thinning out herbs

If you need to add a long-stemmed herb (tarragon, mint, verbena, thyme, etc.) to a recipe, you'll probably only need the leaves and not the stem, so you'll need to remove the leaves. Leaf removal means keeping only the beautiful leaves, and eliminating the ugly stems and leaves, but how do you do...
August 8^th 20252,5345

Add a bay leaf

Bay leaf: small in size, but big in flavor. You'll find it in hundreds of recipes, and it's often added to cooking meat, in a sauce or broth, usually accompanied by other herbs or products. It's a staple of Provençal, Mediterranean and Oriental cuisine, but not the only one. Usually, in a...
July 31^th 20252,6315

Parsley stems

Parsley, whether curly or flat, is a delicious ingredient in many recipes, where it is used both raw and cooked. When used raw, in a salad for example, where it always provides, alone or with other herbs, a remarkable freshness, only the leaves are kept. And when used cooked?
July 28^th 20252,852 13

See all posts Random post RSS feeds

Other pages you may also like

The grease spray

A few tips for effective kneading at home

When you have to knead dough for bread or some other recipe, you may well use a food processor or the type of machine known as a stand mixer. The best-known brands are Kenwood and KitchenAid. They are useful tools, but here are a few tips to help you get the best out of them.
June 23^th 2021279 K 23.7

The window-pane test in bread-making

The home bread-makers often ask themselves “Have I kneaded my dough long enough?” . A good question, as dough that is insufficiently kneaded will not rise properly or will fall flat when the top is slashed, which is very frustrating. To know when the dough is ready, one can rely on the length...
June 16^th 202193 K 23.9

The art of the charlotte

In cooking, a charlotte is a delicious moulded dessert, with biscuits around the outside that have been soaked in a flavoured syrup, filled with a light cream or mousse. The charlotte is left to set in the fridge before being turned out and served in slices. It is very light and a lovely sweet...
February 27^th 201343 K4.3

Steam for baking bread

What does steam have to do with bread-making? This is not only a bakers' secret, it is something you might not think of at all: if you make bread and bake it like a cake, you will end up with bread, but pale and with a thick, hard crust – a long way from the golden-brown crusty loaf you had in...
June 16^th 2021143 K4.5